iPad Helped Boost Tablet Market 45 Percent in 3Q

The worldwide tablet market grew 45.1 percent in the third quarter of 2010, driven primarily by Apple's iPad, though the e-reader market also grew 40 percent during the same time period, according to Tuesday data from IDC.

Vendors shipped approximately 4.8 million media tablets in the third quarter, up from 3.3 million in the second quarter. Apple's iPad made up nearly 90 percent of those shipments, with 4.2 million units.

"The media tablet market's rapid evolution will continue to accelerate in 4Q10 and beyond with new product and service introductions, channel expansion, price competition and experimentation with new use cases among consumers and enterprises," Susan Kevorkian, research director for Mobile Connected Devices at IDC, said in a statement.

The main competitor to the iPad during the quarter was Samsung's Galaxy Tab. IDC expects the media tablet market to "accelerate significantly" in the first quarter of 2011 with the introduction of tablets like the Motorola Xoom and the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook.

The focus on the iPad - which includes e-reading functionality - didn't hurt sales of standalone e-readers, however. Manufacturers shipped 2.7 million e-readers worldwide in the third quarter, a 40 percent growth from the second quarter. Americans snapped up about 75 percent of those devices.

Amazon's Kindle was the most popular e-reader, with 1.14 million units shipped in the third quarter and 41.5 percent of the market. That was followed by Pandigital's Novel e-readers, which shipped 440,000 devices for 16.1 percent of the market. Barnes & Noble came in third with 15.4 percent and 420,000 Nook devices shipped. IDC said Sony "was a distant number four" with 200,000 Reader units shipped and 8.4 percent worldwide share.

Going forward, IDC expects the media tablet market to finish at nearly 17 million in 2010 and jump to 44.6 million in 2011, with the U.S. making up 40 percent of the market. By 2012, tablet sales could hit 70.8 million, driven by devices based on Android and other OSes, IDC said.

For e-readers, IDC estimates that 2010 shipments will come in at 10.8 million, with the U.S. representing 72.4 percent of those sales. That could jump to 14.7 million in 2011 and 16.6 million in 2012 as more color display devices hit the market and content offerings expand.

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Chloe Albanesius

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I started out covering tech policy in DC for The National Journal, where my beat included state-level tech news and all the congressional hearings and FCC meetings I could handle. I later covered Wall Street trading tech before switching gears to consumer tech. I now lead PCMag's news coverage.

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Getting my start in DC means I still have a soft spot for tech policy; Congressional hearings can sometimes be as entertaining as a Bravo reality show, for better or worse. But PCMag is all about the technology we use every day, as well as keeping an eye out for the trends that will shape the industry in the years ahead (or flop on arrival). I've covered the rise of social media, the iOS vs. Android wars, the cord-cutting revolution that's now left us with hefty streaming bills, and the effort to stuff artificial intelligence into every product you could imagine. This job has taken me to CES in Vegas (one too many times), IFA in Berlin, and MWC in Barcelona. I also drove a Tesla 1,000 miles out west as part of our Best Mobile Networks project. Of late, my focus is on our hard-working team of reporters at PCMag, guiding and editing their robust coverage.

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